Yang Wanming, vice-president of the Supreme People's Court, urged stronger arbitration practices at the China Arbitration Summit 2020 held on Sept 22 in Beijing.

The summit focused on new situations and challenges in international dispute settlement, arbitration cooperation and the COVID-19 pandemic response of countries involved the Belt and Road Initiative, online hearings, and innovation and development of arbitration procedures.

Yang said that the pandemic profoundly affected people's lives and production as well as the international commercial arbitration and litigation. The SPC has paid a lot of attention to coordinating its services and guarantees for both epidemic prevention and control and economic and social development, and has issued three guidelines on hearing civil cases related to the epidemic, said Yang.

Courts at all levels have promoted the construction of one-stop diversified dispute resolution and litigation system to ensure consistent case hearings and judgment enforcement. The digital communication brings convenience, low cost and high efficiency for the trial process and was well accepted by more and more judicial organs, arbitration organizations, attorneys and parties, according to Yang.

Coping with challenges of the post-COVID-19 era, settling foreign-related commercial disputes properly and deepening arbitration services are the critical tasks facing the arbitration field,said Yang. The arbitration organizations should follow the trend of win-win cooperation and keep improving the international competitiveness, recognition and voice of China's arbitration and play their role of dissolving disputes and strengthen research and innovation in the new disputes and phenomena caused by the epidemic, said Yang. Courts at all levels should continue to support and supervise the organizations to guarantee and enhance the credibility of arbitration, Yang added.